Our New Future
by Xvern
Summary: When Specialist Tyler Odom fell asleep, it was March 14th, 2016. laying on a green cot next to many others at the National Training Center in Nevada. When he awoke, it was June 18th, 2285 and he was laid upon a white bod within a gray pod... next to many others. Having been transported into the game with hundreds others, can Odom and the other subjects survive this new world?


_[DATE: 23-JUNE-2285]_

 _[TIME: 2243 HOURS]_

 _Where to begin?_

 _It's been almost a week since 'The Arrival', as people have been calling it. That day that we all awoke, scared and confused, in beds that were not our own with a ceiling above us that was an unwelcoming gray. We awoke not to alarm clocks, mothers, lovers, or raucous roommates._

 _We awoke to Her. As superstitious as it sounds to simply call it 'Her', we found that it rolled off the tongue a lot easier than 'mysterious woman'. Admittedly, I find her voice to be gentle and motherly. However, there are some who, even now, scream obscenities when they hear Her._

 _If it wasn't for Her, though, I think that we would be in serious trouble._

 _[SAVE FILE Y/N?]_

[_=_=_=_]

" _It's time to wake up now. Please try to stay calm. Clothing is located in the footlocker at the end of your bed. … It's time to wake up now..."_

"Ugh," Tyler groaned, pulling the pillow over his head to screen out the echoing voice, "whoever's weird alarm that is needs to turn it the fuck off."

While the pillow dulled the 'alarm', it did little to screen out the feminine scream that was not echoed by the walls, but by other females in the room. One such occurrence was next to Tyler, causing him to cringe in pain. Still, he was on his feet in record time... before sitting back on his bed. Maybe a meter from his bed, a girl was sitting upright with her blanket pulled to her chest. Tyler only noticed her eyes though, manic with fear and brimming with tears. She was scared and, as Tyler looked at his surroundings, he could see why.

He was not in one of the hundred man tents at the Army's National Training Center as he had first thought upon waking. No, the number of beds he could see numbered well over five hundred at the least. All of them occupied by a human and everyone of them garbed in plain white undergarments. Most of these people were looking around, their emotions displayed as openly on their faces as if they were advertisements on a billboard. Fear, confusion, embarrassment, and... anger. Luckily, the angry community was only a handful of people, from what Tyler could see. Still, others were doubled over with tears pouring from their eyes. Tyler could also see at least one person who looked to have completely frozen, his eyes looking at a place that Tyler couldn't see.

" _...try to stay calm. Clothing is located in the footlocker at the end of your bed."_

Tyler had looked to the ceiling while listening to that voice. With neat rows of harsh lighting as it's only ornamentation, the roof was otherwise a dull gray. Looking back to the 'bed', Tyler saw that it more resembled a pod, bristling with wires, lights, readouts, and other items that he could only label as 'do-hickys'. The pod portion was the same dull gray as the ceiling while the bed, pillow, and sheet was a hospital white. The echoing recording repeated itself one last time before stopping, leaving the sounds of sobbing and hushed questions in it's wake.

 _Well, nothing came to the man who waited,_ Tyler thought as he stood up. This drew the attention of the girl on the bed next to him, who looked at him with a tear-stained face. Giving her a gentle smile, Tyler looked to one end of the bed and, seeing the footlocker of one of the beds in the next row, went to the other end of his bed. As he had thought, his footlocker was on the ground, waiting to be opened. Like the bed, it was a harsh, hospital white in color. The design was simple with two latches to secure the lid and, being the width of the twin size bed and maybe a foot in height, Tyler wondered if there was truly only clothes within it.

Looking back at the girl in the bed next to his, he saw that she was looking at him, her blue eyes filled with curiosity, brimming with tears as they still were. Behind her, he could see some occupants of the next row looking at him as well. A quick scan showed that just about everyone in his immediate area was watching him. It also revealed that, within the giant room, he was not the only one up and about. _Good,_ he thought simply as he approached not his, but the girl's footlocker.

Without pausing, he flipped the latches and lifted the lid. He paused as he saw what was inside. Black boots rested atop neatly folded blue clothing with long white socks folded and tucked inside one of the boots. Atop the toes of the boots was what was, without a doubt, a Pip-Boy resembling the ones in Fallout 4. Beside that was a plain gray bag, whose contents was a mystery. Moving the boots and Pip-Boy aside revealed a '125' sewn on the back of the clothes in gold lettering.

"What are-" the girl was interrupted as Tyler suddenly stood up, tossing what had turned out to be a jumpsuit at the blonde-haired girl. Forgetting the blanket that covered her, she caught the jumpsuit with both hands and looked at it in a mixture of awe and disbelief.

Moving to his own footlocker, Tyler flipped it open to reveal a layout identical to the girl's. Again pushing aside the boots and Pip-Boy, he pulled out the jumpsuit, unzipped the front and began to slide it on. As he did so, he saw that the girl was still just examining hers.

"Listen miss," he began as he pulled the jumpsuit up to his waist, "unless you want to be walking around in your bra and panties, I suggest you get dressed."

Grabbing the plain white Tee that had been underneath the jumpsuit, Tyler slid it on as the girl began to get dressed with flushed cheeks. With the T-shirt in place, Tyler slipped his arms into the jumpsuit and zipped it up to the middle of his chest. The room was now abuzz with activity as those willing, which consisted of a good seven-eighths of the people by Tyler's count, had gotten up and were getting dressed. Sitting on the bed, Tyler put on his socks and boots, tucking the bottom of the jumpsuit into his boots by habit.

 _Grasp onto the normal and dealing with the crazy won't be so bad,_ his brain rationalized as he spotted the girl next to him quickly look back to her own boots and loosen them before tucking in the legs herself. Tyler couldn't help but raise a brow and give a slight smirk.

"So Mr. Cool," someone began behind Tyler. Turning around, he saw a man in his early twenties with black hair and brown eyes looking at him with a smirk while slipping on the sleeves of his jumpsuit.

"Me?" Tyler asked.

The man gave a snort of amusement before saying, as if obvious, "Yeah," he continued while zipping up his jumpsuit to the top, "So, what do you think is going on here? Too big to be a prank, not to mention the fact that none of us seem to know each other."

"I agree with you there," Tyler answered.

"Then, where are we?" Tyler turned back around to look at the girl. She was standing just behind him, looking at him with a face that displayed her fear for the world to see.

Her question, however, broke the metaphorical dam and released a flood of questions from the people in their general area. The questions ranged from "Where are we?" to "Who took us?". For some reason, and Tyler blamed the man who had named him 'Mr. Cool', a lot of the questions were directed at him. Glancing at the man who gave him the nickname, receiving just a shrug from said man, Tyler looked back at the girl next to him. Looking past her, he saw a large sliding door set into the wall on the other end of the room.

"Well, only one way to find out, right?" he asked, smiling at the girl next to him. She cocked her head slightly in confusion as he moved back to the footlocker at the end of his bed. Opening it, he pulled out the gray bag and Pip-Boy. Slinging the bag over one shoulder, he gave the Pip-Boy a quick once over. As it was in Fallout 4, there was a latch underneath the screen that would keep the device closed around the wearer's wrist. Undoing the latch, Tyler let it fall open before placing it on his wrist. Closing the Pip-Boy proved only slightly more difficult as he had to press it against his gut to keep it around his wrist as he redid the latch. Looking quickly around the room, he saw that the only door in the large room was the wide sliding door at the end of the room.

"Only one way out," he stated, nodding to the door. Without asking anyone to accompany him, Tyler began for the door. After creating a path on a mental map, he looked down at the blank screen on his Pip-Boy. _Here goes nothing,_ he thought as he depressed the Power button. Just like the game, bits of coding quickly scrolled upward across the screen before the Pip-Boy's model and specs were automatically typed onto the screen. Afterward, the vault-boy popped up and at this point, I lowered my arm and focused on the path ahead.

The eyes of the people I passed followed me, their mouths whispering to the people around them. It wasn't long before I felt a great many gazes burning into my skin. It made me uncomfortable; I wanted to just return to the pod and slink away from their stares. However, I felt that I had come too far at this point to just turn around and quit. I also felt a bit of an obligation as a US Army soldier (as much as that title meant now) to figure out what was happening and be the first through the door.

Having been close to the door, it wasn't long until he stood in front of it's mass. The door stood about 12 feet high and was wide enough to permit six average people passage if they walked shoulder to shoulder. In the middle of the door was an easily recognizable cog shape with the number "125" denoted in yellow in it's center. Finally, the control panel for the door was centered on the door and bolted into the a floor a good two yards back from it, at the beginning of the alcove that the door sat in.

Standing in front of said control panel, Tyler examined it's simplistic design. There was only a plug (female end) and a red button with a glass cover. Hearing someone cough, Tyler glanced behind him to see that a sizable crowd had formed. Standing in the front were the girl and the guy who had first asked him what was happening.

"So, are you going to lead us to enlightenment or not?" he asked with that annoying smirk. Surprisingly, the crowd said nothing and, in the punishing silence, Tyler could still hear the sobs of the frightened from within the chamber. _We'll need to handle them at some point,_ Tyler idly thought as he turned back to the control panel.

Looking back at the Pip-Boy on his arm, he saw that the device had fully booted, showing a Vault-Boy representation of himself with his name underneath. Ignoring this, but promising himself that he would explore the device further, he turned his arm to spy the plug stored on the back. Removing it from storage, he pulled it from the device and plugged it into the panel. His screen then went blank except for two lines of text.

" **ARRIVAL BAY DOOR REMOTE ACCESS**

 **READY"**

Accompanying the appearance of the text, the glass cover on the panel flipped open. With the red button revealed, Tyler unplugged his Pip-Boy and stored the plug. With but a second hesitation, Tyler smashed the red button while raising his gaze to the door. With the hiss of pneumatic pumps, the door began to slide upward, surprisingly quiet in it's rails.

" _Welcome, subjects, to your new home; Vault One-Twenty-Five,"_ welcomed the automated voice as the door raised to reveal a stairway as wide as the door that led upward. The walls and floor were still the same dull gray as the large room they were currently in, harsh lighting still set into the ceiling.

Walking around the control panel, Tyler approached the stairs and began to ascend them. As he did, he was acutely aware of the mass following him, their footsteps making his bones rattle in the enclosed space of the stairwell. The young soldier flexed his hand, wishing he had a weapon to grasp. Even a simple baton would have given him comfort as he was weary of what may be waiting at the top.

Cresting the stairs, which rose a good story and a half by his guess, he was met with a gray wall supporting a signal, lit up sign. "Atrium" it read, with arrows pointing to either side. Deciding to go left, he was met with another left turn that consisted of a Vault-Tec style sliding door. Beside the frame, mounted chest high for Tyler, was the door's control box. A simple switch and two lights, one green and one red, were the only indicators on the box. Currently, the red light was lit.

 _Right, this isn't the game. We can't "interact" with the door itself to have it open, nor will it auto close behind us,_ Tyler reasoned. Flexing his hand once more, he reached out and grabbed the switch with his index and middle fingers and thumb. With an exhale, he flicked it to the right, causing the red light to extinguish and the green to illuminate. Once the green light was lit, the clasps at the bottom third division of the door became undone and, with the same sound of pneumatic pumps as the Bay Door, slid open.

Stepping forward, Tyler came out into the Atrium, a room maybe fifty meters wide and about three times that long. Doors lined the wall and Tyler spotted multiple hallways sprouting off from the Atrium. An upper-level walkway overlooked the Atrium, having been placed on the "roof" of the Atrium's rooms instead of as an overhang. There was a definitive lack of bridges connecting the upper-level walkways. At the very other end of the Atrium was what looked to be a dining area with tables set up on tile flooring and what looked to be a long serving window in the center of the back wall.

As the other "subjects" cautiously filed in behind him, Tyler found himself walking to the center of the room. He stopped halfway and turned back, wanting to examine the opposite wall. Over the doors that were still disgorging people was first the railing of the walkway. On the wall behind that, though was a solitary, circular window. Painted over that window in an arch was a phrase that sent a shiver down Tyler's back.

"Your Future Awaits"


End file.
